I'm looking for some advice/pointers for a task I've been given. We have customers that use our eFax service. The faxes are attached as tiff files. This is fine for those users that view them on their Windows machines. But we have some doctors that want to view them on their cellphones in pdf format. I've been assigned with the task of converting these tiff files into pdfs. Here's a basic rundown from what I understand:

A fax comes in and it goes to the Cisco eFax. The Cisco converts it into a tiff file and sends it to the mail server. The mail server then delivers it to the user. I can't do anything on the Cisco side. But I should be able to take the email when it arrives on the mail server, remove the attachment, convert it, reattach, and then send it to the user.

I was thinking of using procmail in some way. Has anyone run across anything like this before?

PreacherBill

08-28-2009 02:19 PM

OpenOffice will allow you to open a document, import a graphic into it, and then export the file as a pdf.

This has to be done at the server level for multiple clients. The fax has to arrive via email into their Blackberry, cellphone, or whatever, as a PDF already. I can't manually take their fax whenever it arrives, convert it using OpenOffice, and send it off to their device. I also can't use tiff2pdf for the same reason. I need to be able to take the attachment, convert it, and reattach without human intervention.

mostlyharmless

08-28-2009 03:59 PM

You could probably use CUPS to print to PDF with an automatic print queue.

The CUPS is interesting, but I'm not sure if that's the route I would need. I was thinking of this:

1. Email with Tiff attachment comes into the server
2. Procmail "sees" the attachment and runs a Perl script on it
3. The script removes the attachment and places it in a directory
4. tiff2pdf is run on the attachment and converts the tiff to pdf
5. The pdf is attached to the original email and sent to the user's mailbox

But I don't know how feasible the above scenario is.

cmahbl

10-12-2012 07:47 PM

Hi cipher7836,

I know this thread is a few years old... did you find a solution to this? I am in the exact predicament and would be interested in knowing what you ended up doing.

Thanks!

JaseP

10-12-2012 08:09 PM

If you look at cipher7836's profile,... you will see there's been no activity on that user account since Jan. 2012...